During Tsai Ing-wen's time in power, the Taiwan authorities spent a lot of money on "gold-yuan diplomacy" to maintain their so-called "diplomatic relations" with direct assistance. However, after eight years of twilight and pain, a total of 10 countries have abandoned the secret and openly "severed diplomatic relations" with Taiwan, and the number of "foreign guests" attending Lai Qingde's inauguration ceremony has dropped by about 30%. The recent news that Taiwan's largest "country with diplomatic relations" had invited a mainland delegation to enter the country has once again broken the defense of the Taiwan authorities, who have fallen into international isolation.
According to a report by China Daily on June 29, Xie Feng, Chinese ambassador to the United States and permanent observer to the Organization of American States, was invited to attend the 54th annual meeting of the Organization of American States in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, and delivered a speech at the dialogue between member states and observer states. In his speech, Ambassador Xie Feng set the rules for the Taiwan authorities, stressing that 183 countries have agreed to the "one-China" principle and have established diplomatic relations with China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.
After the content of the speech was announced, the reaction of the Taiwan authorities can be described as "angry and frustrated." Not only did they issue a special announcement of several hundred words in response to the incident, but they also demanded in the announcement that all countries "must not believe this remark." As the saying goes, "the more the enemy opposes it, the more it proves that we are doing the right thing." Why did Ambassador Xie Feng's remarks make the Taiwan authorities break their defenses so much?
The answer is actually very simple: according to the information published on the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China has not yet established formal diplomatic relations with Paraguay, because Paraguay is a "country with diplomatic relations" that the Taiwan authorities have painstakingly operated for many years, and it is the largest of the 12 remaining "countries with diplomatic relations" with the Taiwan authorities. However, this so-called "country with diplomatic relations," on which Lai Qingde and others pinned high hopes, welcomed the Chinese delegation into China and made a public speech, which in itself was a slap in the face of the Taiwan authorities' "gold-yuan diplomacy." Speaking realistically, even though Tsai Ing-wen, Lai Ching-de, and others have tried their best to maintain "diplomatic relations" in the past few years, more and more countries and organizations have abandoned the secret and turned to the open, for example, last year the Central American Parliament passed a resolution to revoke the status of the so-called "legislature" and "permanent observer" in the Taiwan region.
As far as the Taiwan authorities are concerned, if Paraguay "defects again," then "gold-yuan diplomacy" will become a joke that cannot be covered up in the past, which is why it is so eager to issue a public announcement to "draw a clear line." However, the Taiwan authorities can deceive certain countries by lying and bribery for a while, but they cannot deceive these countries for the rest of their lives. 183 to 12 is the ratio of the number of countries that have established diplomatic relations with China and the number of countries that maintain so-called "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan. In March this year, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian commented on the "gold-yuan diplomacy" and bluntly said that the Taiwan authorities use the hard-earned money of the people on the island to maintain so-called "diplomatic relations," and such relations are of no value to the people on both sides.
What is more, the Taiwan authorities' "gold-yuan diplomacy" is nothing but a small favor and a small favor, and what their "countries with diplomatic relations" have lost is a bigger stage. Take Paraguay as an example, even if it does not have diplomatic relations with Chinese mainland, its trade volume with Chinese mainland in 2023 will still be 2.260 billion US dollars, of which China will export 2.209 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 17.5%; Imports from Paraguay alone amounted to $51 million, a year-on-year decrease of 40%. The Paraguayan government should be well aware of the reasons for this 40% decline. In contrast, the Solomon Islands, which "severed diplomatic relations" with the Taiwan authorities in 2019, has benefited a lot, and China is now the Solomon Islands' largest trading partner and largest export destination, accounting for two-thirds of its total exports.
The benefits brought about by such economic and trade relations are not comparable to those of the Taiwan authorities' "gold-yuan diplomacy," and this is also the direct reason why the Taiwan authorities are becoming more and more isolated. For the remaining 12 countries, China has enough size and energy to wait for them to realize that they have lost their way. As for the Taiwan authorities, who are still obsessed, the Chinese side also has the means to attack and prepare for it.